


Stupid as Hel

by misreall



Series: Loki And Nora's Infinity Stone Playlist [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abduction, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Loki Feels, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Oral Sex, Physical Abuse, Protective Loki, Protective Thor, Rescue, Sex, Thor Is Not Stupid, Vaginal Sex, marvel AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-12-30 16:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12112998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misreall/pseuds/misreall
Summary: Someone has the bright idea to kidnap Loki's wife.





	1. I am sure this is Thor’s fault

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of a rough few weeks all around, so the author has decided to be a bit self-indulgent.

She came to briefly, her face covered in dirty burlap.

They had put a bag over her head.  

It was strange the things she was discovering were universal.  No one is actually ‘fine.’  Every culture has a version of beer, and one of sausage.  Nothing in any language she had run across rhymed with orange... 

But burlaps sacks and abductions?  Who knew?

Her hands were bound behind her back, and her legs were lashed together, making her ankle bones rub painfully together, which helped keep her from falling back into the unconsciousness immediately, even though her head hurt and everything inside of it was swimming in and out of focus.

Coughing slightly from the dust trapped in the old cloth, she choked out, “So are you all suicidal or just catastrophically stupid?”

Someone made a startled noise, and someone else hissed, “You didn’t give her enough!”  Male.

“I didn’t want to hurt her!”  A different male.

“You’re an idiot!”  That voice sounded female.

“Oh honey,” Nora said, “you’re _ all i _ diots.”

Then she felt a needle slide into her hip, and she was gone again.

 

Loki returned to the small dwelling in the country he had taken on Viefr for the last several months, deeply annoyed by everything and looking forward to Nora, a long bath, and a large meal.  

“Thank you for asking me to join you for a dinner, brother,” Thor said, slapping him on the back and nearly knocking him to the ground in his overwhelming comradery.

“It is only to please Nora, be assured of that.  I have had quite enough of your company for the rest of the century, thank you.”

This was the last time he let Thor - with Nora’s assistance - talk him into helping with a problem.  His brother could eradicate his own invasion of semi-mechanised, carnivorous squid by himself the next time.  As it was Loki would never get the defensive ink stains out of his new coat, or the pervasive odor of spoiling calamari and old motor oil from his favorite boots.

How those things squirted, when stomped on.

He crunched leaves along the path to the cottage, enjoying the lovely reds and yellows of the leaves and the perfume of the change of seasons, trying to gain a little calm.   After he had cleaned himself sufficiently, and rid them of Thor’s company, he would take Nora for a walk amongst the trees and fuck her against one of them.

Charles met them at the door.

“Charles.” he said, letting himself be helped out of his outerwear, “I will see to cleaning the daggers myself, but please burn the coat.  Perhaps the boots as well, but see what can be done, first.  Where is your mistr-”

“Sir -”

He looked past his excellent valet.

Something seemed… wrong.

“Where is your mistress?”  He asked again, this time with just a touch of discomfort in his throat.

Then he noticed a rather concerned look on Charles’s face.  No, not concerned.  Fearful.

Charles reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.  

“I take it that is not from Nora?”

“No, sir.  It is a… a ransom note.”

Staring, not taking it, “How long?”

“A few hours sir.  I tried to reach you immediately but-”

Loki made a dismissive gesture, “I have no doubt.  When travelling I am often hard to reach.”

Finally, he took the paper, proud that his hands were steady as he unfolded it and read.

 

When Nora woke up she was in a small, nearly bare room laying on a pallet on the floor.

At least she assumed it was a pallet.  She had never run across one outside of historical or fantasy fiction so she couldn’t be sure.

Trying to stand up, an edge of pain sawed into her brain behind her right eye, also she had been grinding her teeth while she was out, and the drugs still her system were making her lightheaded.  

And she was still tied, hand and foot.

She fell back down, hitting her head on the weeping stone wall behind her.  Which did nothing to help the headache or the dizziness.  

All she had wanted was to get stuff to make dinner.  Viefr was Earth-like enough to have near approximations of things she knew how to cook, and she thought it would be nice to make a meal for a change.  Maybe see if Charles would join her.  He wouldn’t, but she would still ask.

When Loki had left her and Charles in the ridiculously huge house he called a cottage, they had thought it would just be for a few days at most, but it had stretched into weeks.  Even though he contacted her regularly, she was lonely for him, and more than a little bored, in spite of the hilarious amounts of luxury and amusement he had insisted on preparing for her before he left.

She had been the one to encourage him to help Thor.  Even though the brothers had been getting along fairly well of late there had been the fight they had had over the remote the last time she and Loki had snuck back to Earth for an illicit visit to the 999.  

As with most fights between the brothers it had escalated quickly and past all reason.

The God of Thunder had been squatting at their place for awhile, as Stark’s latest experiment in clean energy had left the Tower uninhabitable by anyone with sense of smell for some time.

Thor had been watching  The Great British Bake-Off  and Loki had already seen that particular season and was more interested in viewing  A Series of Unfortunate Events .  It had started with words, then scuffling, then Loki using magic to ‘fix’ the TV so it only played show of interest to him, then to Thor wanging Loki in the head with the literally universal remote.

And then things had gotten ugly.

And destructive.

Eventually she had dumped the tureen of cream of mushroom soup that Mrs. Beekman had made earlier over both of them.  It hadn’t hurt either of them, even though it was steaming hot, but they had both pouted  at her most of the afternoon. 

Over time she had figured out that gods were a lot like cats, you had to punch them right in the dignity if you wanted to make an impression.

Loki had actually extended his pouting into the evening.  Because he just had to be like that.  He had insisted on sleeping on the couch rather than sharing a bed with a woman who “Had so little regard for both my hair and my new  Desmond Merrion Supreme Bespoke.”  He had lasted  until about 3 am.

After several hours of his endless shifting and loud groaning, which somehow Nora could hear  _ very _ plainly, in spite how far down the hallway their bedroom was, and there being two solid oak doors between them, he had slithered into bed with her.  

“I thought I was ‘a sartorial nightmare’ and you couldn’t bear to be with me as long as the stench of criminis remained fresh in your memory?”  She grumbled as he pulled her against him into the position Loki refused to call sleeping spoons because it was too adorable.  He prefered to call it ‘the welcome possibility of somnambulant sodomy.’

“I had,” he murmured into her hair, already nearly asleep, “but I could tell you were unable to rest without me, and so decided to take pity on my poor, insomniacal treasure...”

When in the morning when Thor had brought up his squid problem Nora encouraged Loki to help.  “You like killing things.  He likes killing things.  You like killing things together… go, be friends again.”

Loki had been reluctant to leave her.  In the few years they had traveled together they had only been apart three times - once when she ended up on the wrong side of a quarantine line, and then the time that Loki had to return to Asgard for the reading of Frigga’s recently discovered will, and finally the time that... she prefered not to think about.

But she had pushed and needled, and eventually she had gotten her way.

Nora waited to do her victory dance until after Loki was gone.

And because of that a simple trip to the local market Viefr had turned into an abduction.  She looked around the cell she was in - cold, dark, wet, and smelling of rotten socks and bad teeth - and sighed.  Loki was never going to let her out of his sight again.

And he would probably find some way to blame poor Thor for it.

 

“This is entirely YOUR FAULT, you pestilential, brainless, wittering, puerile, feculent BALL-SACK full of Troll ABORTIONS!”  Loki screamed from where Thor had pinned him as comfortably as he could manage on one of the divans in the great hall.

“At least Master Loki has found his words again,” Charles said softly from where he and his master’s brother were conferring over the rather illiterate note, hoping for clues.

Truthfully, it was the sort of thing Loki did much better than either of them, or anyone else for that matter, but he had been little more than a raving lunatic from the time he had finally read said note.  First there had been a low growl that set all of the hair on the back of Charles’ neck straight up and caused his primary mouth to try and bite its way out his shirt and vest in order to defend itself.  

Then, his eyes half rolled up so little more than the whites were visible, and seeing nothing around him but blackness and murder, Loki had launched himself at his brother, taking him to the ground with a precise series of punches while shouting incoherent obscenities into his face.

It had taken both Thor and Charles together to restrain him without actually hurting him in any way.  Indeed, most of his bruises came from his efforts to free himself from Mjolnir, all the while making the most disturbing noises.  

Then there had been an ominous silence for a time.  

And now.

“IF SHE HAS EVEN A MACULE OF DUST UPON HER CHEEK I WILL EAT YOUR FUCKING HEART!”

Thor looked at Charles.

“It means ‘smudge’, sir.”

“He’s doing better.  I think I can let him up now.”

 

Eventually Nora woke up again and managed to sit up.  There was a dim bit of light from around a door, and from where a painted over window high on the fall had started to flake.  She quickly figured out that she wasn’t somewhere that was meant to hold prisoners, but probably potatoes or whatever root vegetables they had on Viefr.  Space rutabagas.  Intergalactic yams.  

Parsnips of the Future.

As she started laughing at her own jokes, she wondered what they had been dousing her with.   

Stardust?

Now she was really laughing and sore all over from being passed out in a heap on a lumpy mattress on a cold floor.  And she was hot.  Very hot.  And slightly sweaty, too.

None of that was good.  If she got sick while she was being held Loki was going to kill them.  

He was going to kill them either way, she reasoned.  Just pick each of whoever they were up by their legs and make a wish.

“HEY!”

She called out.

Nothing.

“You need to get me a bucket or something!  And some water!  And maybe some food!”

Nothing.

Because her brain wasn’t working very well.  And because she was scared, and even more scared of what would happen when Loki found her, and even more scared than that of what would happen to both of them if he didn’t find her, she just started yelling.

(It would have amused and secretly pleased both Loki and Nora to know that they were both yelling at the same time, miles apart from each other.   Even if not for the reason that that was normally the case.)

Finally, the old wooden door across the dirty cellar from her flew open and a skinny, orange haired female who looked mostly human and entirely strung out stomped into the room.  “SHUT UP!”

“WHY?  I DON’T OWE YOU ANY FAVORS!”  Nora shouted back and then fell onto her side laughing, “Oh, fuck, what did you give me?”

“Just a little Sparkle.  You should be grateful.  Movy just wanted to knock you out and not waste our shit on you,” the woman said, shifting from bare foot to bare foot, squeezing her arms through the thin sweater she was wearing.

“Oh Fuck, Keena!  You fucking told her my name!”  Came the male voice from behind her.

Which made Nora laugh all the harder.  She didn’t want to laugh any longer.  It was starting to be a bit painful.  Being a damsel in distress was as annoying as Kelsey singing Katy Perry,  _ again, _ at karaoke night.

But the little bit of her brain that wasn’t drugged up was worried.  Sparkle, from what she heard, was a very addictive drug they were having trouble with in this system.   

“Who cares?  We can just kill her when the husband pays.  Dump her near the port,” the junkie, Keena, said, sounding vague and whiny.

Even Nora’s addled brain sobered up a bit at that.  

Pushing with her shoulder, she managed to sit up again, her ankles now painfully rubbing together enough that she wondered if she was going to have sores there.  “Listen, idiots,” she said, making her voice serious, ”do you have the slightest concept of what my husband will do to you if you  _ don’t _ hurt me? And if you do hurt me, or lord help you, kill me?  They will write songs about it!  They will make movies that will cause hard-core gorehounds to vomit in their popcorn.  Mama and Daddy criminals will tell their baby criminals about you when they want them to behave and steal their spinach.  Consider very carefully, and then let me go.”

Movy came into the room.  He was shaven headed, with deep red skin and muscles that were pretty shocking, leading Nora to believe that he wasn’t an addict, even if his girlfriend was.  He shook his head at her, “Lady, sorry, but your husband, that little guy in the shiny shoes?  Just ain’t that scary.  Unless you mean he’s gonna pay someone to take us apart.  Rich guys never get their hands dirty.”

It took her a few moments to figure out he was talking about Charles.  “You mean the man who was with me at the market?”  Nora gave them a toothy smile.  “You thought that was my husband?”  Now she howled in earnest, not minding the pain.  “Not that Charles wouldn’t do terrible things to you, too.  He just wouldn’t leave any bits of you behind if he did.  But he would be waaaaayyyy less cruel about it than Lo-”

“Stop that shit,” Movy said, giving her a kick in the ribs with his boot.

Nora clutched her side, no longer laughing.

He had pretty much just killed himself and anyone else that was working with him unless Nora got to talk to Loki before he got to them.

The woman, Keena, started scratching at her arms, squatting nervously in front of Nora, “So if that isn’t your husband, who is?  He’s rich, though, right?  He likes you, enough to pay I mean?”

Nora pushed herself up again, her shoulder now starting to ache a bit, “Yes, he’s rich.  Really rich.  And he likes me a lot.  And,” she added, glaring at Movy, “trust me, he is more than willing to get his hands dirty.

His name is Loki.”

Movy and Keena look at each other and shrugged, “No idea, honey,” she said.

“Never heard of him,” he added as they left the room.

“Well, you should look him up!”  Nora shouted at the closing door.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. I'm Pretty Sure This is Not Going to End Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora is still kidnapped. Loki is not handling it as well as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Please blame my brain and real life in equal measure.

“So what are you asking for me, Morons?”  Nora called out, not sure if anyone was around to hear her.  She also wasn’t sure that insulting the people who had her bound and in locked in a basement was a wise idea, but she had never made good life choices when it came to self-preservation, so why start now?

Plus, while it wasn’t something she knew much about, she was a little afraid that she might be going through a touch of withdrawal from the Sparkle.  Her hands, once again bound behind her back, probably too tightly, were shaking, as were her legs, her stomach was cramping, and she was alternately freezing and dripping sweat, while itching from dehydration.

So either withdrawal, cholera, or a very sudden, very early onset of menopause due to extreme weirdness or maybe from breathing in some alien-to-her mold spores in the basement.

None of which would leave Loki inclined to not kill her abductors when he found her.   And more than anything Nora was desperate for him to NOT kill them or anyone else, because of her.  

Assuming he found her in time.  If he didn’t, at least she wouldn’t have to live with the knowledge.

“HOW MUCH?”

The bitch, Keena, finally shouted back, “10,000.  Shut the fuck up!”

Nora laughed, “Stupid _ and _ unambitious!  Drugs Really Are Bad!”

 

“10,000?  Is that a reasonable sum?”  Thor asked.   

He genuinely wasn’t sure.  On Asgard he had never had to pay for anything, and on Midgard he had only vaguely started to understand how commerce worked.  Mostly he simply informed one of the computers in Avengers Tower if he had a need -  a foaming mug of ale, a joint of mutton, perhaps some fur-lined house-slippers - and within a short time the thing would appear (although in the case of the slippers Thor suspected the fur was faux).  But recently Tony had started giving him a few paper bills every morning so if he wanted to stop for a PSL while he walked through Manhattan he wouldn’t have to call Maria Hill to come buy him one every time he was parched.

“It’s an INSULT, is what it is,  _ a slight _ !  It BELITTLES my Nora’s worth!  SHE IS -”  Loki had gained some control of his temper, but not of his volume, which seemed to go up and down on its own, from a low, nerve shredding growl to a booming, ear-piercing bellow.

Thor waved a hand and nodded, “A pearl beyond price.  Perfection. All that is decent and worthwhile in a benighted universe. I know brother, but as this is not so much money can we not simply pay them?  And if they should not have Nora there to return to your arms, follow them, and wreak terrible vengeance?” Thinking about it, he added, “I believe we should wreak terrible vengeance either way.  I do not care for their laying violent hands upon my sister.”

Loki turned, a finger to Thor’s face, and then stopped looking confused, “Actually, that is perfectly good idea. Simple.  Logical.  I should have thought of it….  What have you done with my brother?  Are you an advanced robot of some sort?  Or perhaps this is a case of possession?”

“Just because I am not as brilliant as you are does not make me an idiot,” Thor sighed.  “Just as my being stronger than you does not make you weak.  And you are no doubt too distracted by concern over your princess’s well-being to think clearly.”

Now Loki squinted, looking closely at Thor’s face.  “Remarkable.  How did they get the tiny controller into your brain without killing you?  Regardless, yes, we should do that plan-thingy of yours,” he said with a dismissive nod.

 

Upstairs someone screamed, “FUCK!” 

Or the Viefrene equivalent of it, Nora assumed as she tried to finish waking up.

There was the sound of feet running, and the door flew open.  The sudden light hurt her eyes, and she dropped her head back to the dirty bedding with a groan.  “What?”

Another creature, more or less human looking than the others - his features were very Terran or Asgardian, depending where you were from, but his hair looked like it was made out of metal shavings and slats of wood - slammed into the room.

And he was smaller than Movy, which was comforting, but also a uniform shade of puce, including his eyes and teeth, which wasn’t.  

He grabbed Nora and easily lifted her by the front of her sweater with one hand, shaking what looked like a tablet made of something organic and squishy in front of her face.  “Are you saying THIS is your FUCKING husband?”

“I don’t know!  Stop shaking me and let me look.”  

He stopped and she took the opportunity to vomit on his pants, “Ugh-” he dropped the tablet and pushed Nora hard.  Luckily she and it landed in the same spot, the tablet handling the fall better than she did.

On the wavering, soft screen was Loki.  The image was from his first return to Asgard, shackled and arrogant, strutting like a rooster, preening in all of his beautiful turpitude. 

“Yes,” she sighed, not even wanting to make a crack about it.  Just the sight of Loki, even at his most frustrating, was more comfort than she had had in days.  

Her kidnapper crouched and helped her sit up, “This says he’s a god.  That can’t be true?  Is it?”

Nora nodded, smiling.  She hurt all over and at the moment wished he was the god of something more practical than Mischief and Lies.  Being married to the God of Teleportation might be nice right now, for instance.

“It also say he-,” the kidnapper grabbed the tablet and began read, “does magic, shape-changes, can make clones of himself to act independently, craft powerful illusions, is super-strong and fast and nearly indestructable, has trained in warfare, tactics, and strategy, plus armed and unarmed combat for over a thousand years, can materialize knives out of the air, owns at least one dragon that can make penises disappear, ruled the realm of the gods, almost conquered Earth - never heard of it - with an army of Chitauri, possessed a couple of Infinity Stones at different times, his servant is an immortal demon that collects shoes and lives off of sentient flesh, his brother is a War God of Thunder, has outwitted Lucifer, had some bullshit happen with Thanos that he lived through, but died at least two other times and may have erased his name from the Book of Death, and is well-known to be insane with periods of lucidity marked by calculated power grabs?”

Nora shrugged as well as she could with her hands still tied, “He also loves me very, very much, and always has cookies.  Oh, and O-verk, the dragon?  All he does is shrink penises waaaayyyy down, but they are still there.”

Mr. Puce gave her a rather insulting look, “Why?”

“I guess he just doesn’t like big dicks and wants to do something about it?  Whatever the reason I am guessing that you don’t have to worry about him.”

“I meant why did he marry you?”

“Do you really want to insult me right now?  Cause I think you want me to put in a good word with my very doting and overly protective and violent husband?”

He got up and paced, smoothing his hands through his metal and wood locks, which fell back into place with a series of pleasant clicking sounds.  Then he looked at Nora again.  “You don’t look too good.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” he groused. “Wait, didn’t it say….” he looked back at the tablet.  “Fuck, you’re from Terra.  And we gave you Sparkle.  You are married to a mad god and are from Terra and we gave you Sparkle.”

“Why do you make that sound worse than I already thought it was?”  She asked, noticing that her formerly clammy skin was starting to feel hot.  Burning hot.

“It’s bad,” he shook his head.

“How bad?  What bad?”

“Death bad.”

“What?”  He went back to the door, “What do you mean, death-bad?”

When he left he shut the light off.  

 

The meet was happening in the shopping district where Nora had probably been taken in the first place, meaning the kidnappers were either supremely idiotic or were hoping to pick up some donuts and floor wax on their way home.  Loki rather hoped it was the second choice, assuming that Nora would be safer in the hands of not-morons.

He sat outside of a small cafe cloaked in an illusion that made him look rather like a certain grumpy Slavic witch and sipping some utter vile tisane made of,  apparently, artificial turf and pencil shavings, watching Charles from a distance as he waited with perfect sang froid for the money exchange.  The crowds of shoppers gave him space without understanding why, parting like a brook around a sandbar.

On the opposite side of the street was Thor, shifted into an especially disgruntled looking Alsatian tied to a street sign, scanned the crowd as well.

The villains were late and Loki’s grip had powdered at least seven teacups as rage and anxiety surged through him.

Today, to Loki everyone looked like a criminal, or at least a potential one, so much as he was sick to admit it to himself, he looked to his brother for a more _ rational  _ gaze.  

At the moment, however, Thor was letting a small, pink-skinned boy give him belly rubs and tell him he was a good boy, so he was not of much help, and Loki resigned himself to another purgatorial cup of disgust as the wait went on.  He had just added a great deal of honey to it when he saw DogThor shoot to his paws and his lips curling back from long fangs.

Someone was approaching Charles.  A small, human-ish female with deep orange hair, the raised grey speckles of a long time Sparkle addict splattered on her skin like mud.  She might have been pretty if there had not been such an aura of vileness and stink around her.  Everything about her was revulsive to Loki, but what turned his blood to acid was the sight of one of Nora’s wedding necklaces wrapped like a bracelet around one of her dirty wrists.

She was, however, admirably calm in talking to Charles, unwinding the necklace and giving it to him and the pulled out one of those unpleasant organic devices that were the fashionable thing on this planet.  Loki had never liked his technology to squish.   She showed something on it to Charles, apparently a proof of life.

Something in Loki’s chest eased and then tightened again as, while Charles was handing her a very attractive Gucci messenger bag filled with the ransom, she jerked upright and pressed her ear, having apparently gotten a message through a fleshy equivalent of a bluetooth.  

She looked frightened.

Then she looked around.

Fortunately for Loki, Thor had not been as distracted by the exchange as he had been, because at the same moment a large male in the crowd who had also been watching also received a message and turned to run.  

The huge, now growling dog raced after him while turning into a huge, now growling God of Thunder.

The girl panicked, grabbed the bag, and shoved at Charles - no doubt hoping to knock him over and get away.  She was clearly shocked that the tiny man not only did not budge, but easily took her arm, an annihilatory smile growing on his face.

And probably within his neatly pressed shirt, Loki distracted mind hazarded.

Dropping the illusion covering him, Loki stalked quickly to his man servant, pushing confused shoppers out of his path.  One or two angry souls tried to retaliate, but one look at his face gave them other, better, thoughts.

“Who the fuck are y-, GERLAGHHHHHH!”  The girl said as Loki grabbed a fistful of her greasy hair, bent her back so far she nearly broke, and then gripped her jaw, squeezing hard enough to make her bones and teeth squeak.  The pain in her eyes turned to terror as she focused on his face.

“One chance to tell me,” he gritted out, the bedlam in his mind was now a burning pile and all of his insanity slithered free, “or I will irrigate that speckled cunt of yours with vitriol and watch you  _ corrode  _ from the inside out.”

She believed him.

By the time Loki, Charles, and the dragged and crying Keena reached the rattrap where Nora was being held, Thor had caught up with the male kidnapper and had beaten the same information out of him.  The large man hung limply by an ankle as Thor held him aloft upside-down.  “She’s in the basement and there’s another-”

“Accomplice.  I am aware.”

Thor gave him a concerned frown.  Loki could not understand why.  He knew that he sounded calm.  He felt very calm.   Tranquil.  He whipped the girl onto the ground so she slid on her face in the thin, gravelly dirt, leaving a trail of blood and eye tissue in her wake.

“You should not have done this thing,” he t’sked at her.

As he serenely passed his brother on his way into the hovel, Loki grabbed a handful of the suspended man’s hair and ripped his scalp off with a twist of the wrist and a just touch of magic, whispering, “You should not have kicked her.”

There was chaos in his wake - screaming, gurgling, a yelp of disgust from his brother, more tears.  

It had been too long.  The vipers in his mind hisses lovingly and coiled more tightly.

The stairs to the basement were rickety and groaned under his weight.

“Listen, I know this looks really, really bad, but please don’t kill him,” Nora said, her voice tight and strained from where the last of the kidnappers held a rope tight around her throat and a gun to her head.

Loki felt something bubble up from the sickness that had risen within him since everything had started to go wrong.  

He looked at his wife.  Even though these creatures had only held her for a few days, she had lost weight, and there was a near-to bloody redness around her eyes, and evidence of her having been ill upon her sweat-stained blouse.  He could see scabs on the tender insides her ankle bones and rope-burns on her wrists.  

Worse, though, was the smell coming off of her.  A smell of deep poison seeping from her organs and blood.

“Stay back!”  The kidnapper yanked, pulling at the rope, and she made a small noise of upset.

That noise.

It was almost… funny.  How it came in the middle of her pleading for her captor’s life.

It was really very funny, as he thought about it.

Loki laughed.

  
  



	3. If You Think I’m Ever Letting You Out of My Sight Again You Have Clearly Taken a Blow to the Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora and Loki and snakes, oh my.

Loki laughed.  

It scared the hell out of Nora.

It was not the ratchet-y, dry sound of his being amused by one of his own jokes, or the wild, head tossed back sound of his laughing at something she had said.  It was the sound of the madness that always crept around the edges of his often precarious sanity, waiting for a chance to boot it out of the way and take over.

His eyes were calm, dead almost, but his face expressionless and that too long, too loud laugh just left his mouth a distorted hole.

“Push me at him and run,” she whispered to Puce-man, feeling like she was going to be ill.  Her body was slick with oily sweat from fear and sickness.  If Loki had to catch her, and she could tangle him up for a few minutes then he might have a chance.

“What?”  He whispered back.

“Do it if you want to live.  Or don’t.  You’re a jerk anyway.”  

Loki stopped laughing and cocked his head, empty eyes meeting hers.  Mannequin eyes.  “Too late,” he chirped pleasantly, as she felt the rope around her neck turn heavier and thicker, and begin to move on it’s own, hissing.

Her captor screamed, and what had been the rope launched itself from around her throat.  

As he fell away from her, Loki took two quick steps, gently turning Nora around, wrapping his arms around her waist, while resting his chin on her shoulder so they could watch together.  A yellow snake with black spots was now coiled around the kidnapper’s face, biting over and over again as he screamed in agony and tried to pull it away.  The venom left blisters and necrosis, so in moments he fell in a twitching heap, the snake turning again to rope when it touched the ground.

“Russel’s vipers have such delightfully foul tempers,” Loki crooned into her ear, nuzzling and kissing.  “They have the Most. Painful. Bite. Of any serpent in the Realms,” he said, a giving her a tender peck for each word emphasised.

Nora started to shiver.  “Is it… is the poison real?  Is he going to die?”

“Of course.  The whole plan was his idea,” he lightly kissed her cheek, squeezing her closer.  “I know you are concerned for his loathsome compatriots.  Never fear. I have only left them disfigured, they shall retain their lives - in your honor.  Oh, look, the necrosis is setting in.”

“Stop it!”  Nora pulled herself free, grabbing her husband’s face so she could stare into his blank eyes.  She had only seen him like this a few times, when the memories of his time with Thanos overwhelmed him and his sanity hid itself in a dark corner like a scared child.  “I’m fine, I’ll be fine, but you have to save him.”

“No,” he gave her a loving, empty smile and touched her cheek.  “His corpse and his friend’s mangled bodies will be your protection, my treasure.  Now let us go.  You clearly need medical attention, and I am afraid,” and now he laughed again, that same dead laugh, “that in the state I am in my healing might actually harm you.  Would that not be amusing, though?”

“Sure,” Nora turned back to the kidnapper, who had stopped rolling and was now only moaning.  “Or I could go and grab that snake off of his face.  That would be amusing, too.”  She took a quick lurching step and practically fell on top of the man, her face inches from the serpent which reared back in offense, ready to turn its attack on her.

Loki made a garbled sound and it turned back into rope, even as he lifted Nora roughly, holding her hard enough to make her ribs ache, “Are you mad?”  He hissed into her ear.

“Only if you are.  I’ll stop if you stop.”  Nora’s head ached, her heart was sick, and all she could think to do was to argue.  

“What?”  He set her down and frowned, his eyes glowing like jade as he stared hard enough to pierce her skull.  

Nora put her hands on her hips, swaying slightly.  She really didn’t feel a bit good.  “If you act like a crazy person I am going to, too.”

“I’m not acting, Nora.  You can’t just expect me to be-”

“AH!  Contraction!  You only speak in contractions when you’re really annoyed by something.”

“And?”  Now he looked confused.  His beautiful, dear face, that Nora had been afraid she might never see again was adorable when he was confused, and he hated being cute in any way.

“If you are annoyed then you aren’t crazy.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It would if you were going mad.”

“That is not the case.”

“It is.”

“It is not.”

“Listen.  I am not arguing with you.  You are going to heal  _ him _ , I can still hear his breath wheezing out so you should have time, and the others.  But first you are going to catch me.”

Now that perfect line of frown creased between his eyes.  “Catch you?”

“Yeah.  I really think I need to pass out now.”

Which she did.

 

The blast of adrenalized fear that shot through Loki’s nervous system cleared his brain and roused his sleeping sanity and leaving him with a blazing headache.  He caught Nora by the waist and lifted her into his arms, pressing a kiss and a whisper to her temple, “Someday I shall win one of these little disagreements,” he said, snapping his fingers at the rope which turned into a coil of energy that inserted itself in the kidnapper’s mouth, crawling like a living thing down his throat, leaving him choking around the healing spell that it carried.

He would do as his wife wished, but he would be damned if he would make it pleasant.

After laying Nora on the thin pallet that had been serving as her bed, he pulled the filthy blouse she was wearing open and laid his hand on her racing heart, and then leaned to sniff her breath.  It smelled of unbrushed teeth and, more concerningly, metal, and the delicate membranes around her eyes and mouth were badly inflamed.  The morons had been giving her Sparkle, which contained antimony.  For most species all that did was enhance the effects, but for humans….

It was fortunate that he had worked on his healing over the last years since Nora had come into his life.  He used to think it was slightly hilarious that Midgardians were so fragile, until he had one of his own and would lay awake some nights to make certain she had not stopped breathing or one of those other terrifying things that they did.  

With great care he felt his way into her blood and bones, where the traces of the metal had made itself at home.  He lifted it away, guiding it through the places between her cells until her clothing and hair were heavy and sodden with the poison and Loki was gasping for breath, his energy spent.  He stretched out next to her on the narrow bed, as her eyes fluttered open.

“Did you-” Nora asked softly, staring that ceiling.

“You and your new friend shall both live,” he groaned, “unlike myself.  You know healing is unnatural to Jotunns and yet you will insist on being so … mortal.  But you will be weak for some days to come.  I will have to insist you remain in bed until I am certain of your well being.”

She smiled at him, bright and lovely, and also tired.  “You sound like yourself again.  Your less sanity-challenged self.  And I’ll decide when I am ready to get up.  If you had your way I wouldn’t-”

There was an ominous creaking from the stairs.  Loki sighed.  “Thor!  What has taken you so long?  You will have to carry all of us out of this pit.  Take Nora first, and be careful.”

His brother grumbled amicably, “I had to attend to - it matters not.  Sister,” he said, picking up Nora, “I am glad to see you returned to my brother’s side, even if it is while you are both lying helplessly on a futon in a basement.”

Loki watched his brother gently carry Nora away, stepping over the still writhing but no longer dying body of her kidnapper.  

When they were out of sight Loki reached out his hand towards the other man, clenching his fist, causing the rope to rip its way back out of his body, dragging much of his digestive system with it.  The pain appeared so great the criminal could not even scream.

“Ooops.  How clumsy of me.”

 

Later, after the authorities had been dealt with through careful applications of lies, name-dropping, and money, and Thor had said his goodbyes to Nora while ignoring the now recovered Loki’s increasingly rude and physical attempts to hurry him along, they were able to return to the house they were staying in.

Charles quietly retreated to make dinner with one last, dignified murmur of gratification at Nora’s safe return.

Nora looked at Loki where he leaned against the fireplace, staring at the flames with an expression of pensive melancholy on his face.  She wondered, yet again, if gestures like that were natural to him, of if he had practiced them so often as a kid they now were just muscle memory?  Either way, he was no doubt beating himself up for something again and that could take hours.  She wanted a bath, some food, and some sleep.

“I forgive you.  Now come and undress me,” she said, standing up.

He frowned at her, “Forgive me for what?”

She shrugged, “Whatever.  Everything.  Anything.  Can we not do this now?”

His frown turned into a glare.  “How do you know I am not angry with you?  After all,  you sent me off with Thor to deal with those ridiculous squid, and then wandered blithely around without a care for your safety,” he stalked to her, grabbing her arm.  “You must have a care, for my sake if not your own.  I would not ... I could not survive knowing I caused your death.  I would not allow myself to.”

“You just said that this was my fault, so technically you should have been fine if things had gone south,” she said, undoing the pins that one of the local police had given her to close her blouse back up with.  

“Do not mock me,” he said, not angry any longer but gutted, his beautiful face desolate.

“Oh, Loki,” she said, reaching out and taking his face in her hands, “the day I stop mocking you when you get like this you will know something is really wrong.  Until then,” she stood on her toes and kissed him, “I think it might be my turn to lose it a little, ok?”

He laughed slightly against her lips, “I do have a tendency to make all things about me, do I not?  This is clearly about you.”

“We both know it’s never about me.  Now do I get a bath?”

The huge tub that Loki had replaced the normal sized one with was already filled with water just to the right side of agonisingly hot.  While Nora finished brushing her teeth he added a number of herbs and magical oils to it to help speed her recovery. Before letting her climb in he leaned her back against the massive stone sink that he had also added, to wash her hair.  

Nora closed her eyes to better feel his long fingers firmly cleaning her hair and then massaging her scalp, “You would make a great lady’s maid,” she said, sighing.

“I did.  Once.  It is a rather amusing story.”

“You mean dirty.”

“Of course.”

“Next time I need a bedtime story, then.”

After rinsing her hair with rosemary scented water, he insisted - and for a change she didn’t object - on carrying her into the tub, willing his clothing away and sinking down behind her so he could carefully bathe her as well.   As he washed her, Loki also massaged her - arms, legs, back, stomach, - until every knot was untied and she could barely lift her head.

Wrapped in one of his endless number of velvet robes, her hair magically dry, Nora lounged on the bed while he went to get their meal.  By tomorrow all of this was going to get painfully old for her fast and by noon they would no doubt be fighting about when she could get out of bed, but for tonight she didn’t have the strength to not let him have his way.  Or the desire.  The whole time she had lain in that basement, cold and wanting her husband, all she had thought about was how he was going to use this as an excuse to treat her like a kitten with a broken paw.

And how for once that sounded wonderful.

Although she wasn’t going to let him feed her.  

After he had cleared the tray, Loki stretched out beside her, pulling her into his arms and stroking her back, “Would you prefer me to eat you out now or after you sleep?”

“Now, please.”

“I was so hoping you would say that,” he leered against her neck, nipping her back for the bite she had given him early when he had tried to feed her.

Slowly, as slowly as could be imagined, he untied the thin silk sash of his robe and wrapped it around one of his hands, and then eased her free of the velvet.  Her skin was hypersensitive from being clean and healthy again, and the rasp of his linen tunic and suede pants on her flesh was almost irritating.  She wanted to be skin to skin with him, but Nora knew that now they were in Loki’s domain and he would do things as he liked.

His silk-wrapped hand stroked between her legs, and Nora felt herself start to burn.  He kissed her, long and so damned slow, first with his mouth closed, just slight brushes of his lips on her, then a touch of his tongue to the delicate flesh inside of them, then deeper, so it toyed with her tongue in return, then a gentle suckle, followed by more exploration.  It was not how he normally kissed her, as if memorizing, but rather, like he had never done so before and was discovering.

All the while silk and cool fingers worked at her, massaging and teasing, until he was satisfied that she had lost all reason and was in direst need of his mouth in their place.

When the pointed tip of his tongue circled her clit, Nora came immediately, her hips jerking, a keening noise that she didn’t recognise coming from her.  Her body was glad to be alive, and rather than try and lure Loki back she pushed against him harder.  She needed more.  She needed to feel obliterated, to only feel him.

 

Loki gave Nora what she needed.

What he needed her to have.  

His fingers found every spot that made her spasm and jump and want more.  He took her past the point where she would normally beg him to stop, even though she should have been too tired and worn to allow it.  Even though, perhaps, he should have stopped himself, but he could not.  He needed.

He needed every orgasm he could drive her to, every possible taste of her warm life in his mouth, every wet grasp of her cunt around his fingers.  For once he did not stop to speak to her, to reaffirm again and again that what was between them was life for him.  Just more and more effort.  

He considered using magic but put it aside.  This was between them.

When he knew he could bear no more, he again willed his clothing away and crawled up her body, and slowly teased her still convulsing sex with his cock.  First just touching the tip of the head to the inside, and then pulling back.  Her bright eyes opened and locked with his, “What?”

“Wait…” he crooned, now putting it just an inch and then pulling out with terrible slowness just as he felt her tightened around him.  Then again, two inches, slowly and slower out.  She grabbed at his wrists, squeezing, but did not speak.

Three inches, and when her cunt clutched him with want it was all he could do to ease free of its divinity.

Four inches, and tears formed at the corner of Nora’s eyes.  He smiled at that and licked one away as it rolled down her cheek, pausing, and then leaving her.

She begged.   He knew she would refuse to remember  _ that _ later.

Five inches, and he was wondering if this had not been the most terrible, wonderful idea he had ever had.

And so on, each motion deeper, slower, until she was dripping sweat, her back bowed, and Loki thought he had destroyed what remained of his own reason. Hours had passed  She felt too good.  He would stay in her forever.

Then she reached up and took a fistful of his hair and yanked, pulling his mouth to hers, pushing Loki past his own resistance so he fucked her hard, long scooping motions of his hips causing him to press her clit, her g-spot, far enough into her to hurt and then to make it better.

She stayed locked around him, panting into his ear, “Come for me, handsome prince.”

“No,” he had to hold off.   She needed more.  

“Let me feel it.  Come for me,” her clear alto was husky from screaming, like the voice of sex itself, “I need you to.”

He wanted to wait, to go even longer, to take her to her pleasure again and again, to feel the rhythm of her heartbeat as it fluttered in her cunt, because like this she would always be safe.  Entwined like this she could neither escape him or be taken. 

But she needed it.

He would always give her what she needed.

 

They slept for a day, coiled around each other like serpents on a boulder in the sun.  When they woke, before Nora could escape, Loki arranged her against his side and said, “I think I have had enough of this world.  Their people are inept at crime and their technology is icky.”

“What date is it?”  Nora asked.

“The 89th of Ikadi.”

“I mean the real date.”

Loki sighed.  For Nora nowhere they went was entirely real but Midgard.  Although who knew, maybe she was correct.  “December 20th.”

Abruptly Nora sprang to her knees next to him, “We are going to New Orleans!  It’s almost Christmas and we can do Reveillon.  We can do a bunch of them!  Oh crap, I’m sore,” she said, flopping back next to him.

“What is ‘reveillon’ you madwoman?”  He asked, annoyed but all the while circling a hand glowing with healing energy over her torso.

She just smiled at him, knowingly.


End file.
